Saturday, September 15, 2012

Writers Workplace with Barbara Wallace

The Pink Heart Society is pleased to welcome one of Harlequin Romance's best...Barbara Wallace!

True confession time.When Jenna Bayley-Burke asked me to write about my writer’s space, I
almost said no.For one reason, posting
photos of my house would reveal exactly how unglamorous this writer’s life
is.(Another confession: living on the
affordable street in a neighborhood of McMansions tends me to bring out my
insecure side. Still another confession: everything brings out my insecure
side.)

But there was another, bigger reason I hesitated.One a wee bit more complicated.See, if I talk about my writer’s space, then
I’ll have to own up to something I’ve been hiding from my family for four
years.The office I created out of our
small spare bedroom?The one I insisted
I had to have because I “needed a room of my own”?It’s my least favorite place to write.

From all accounts, I should love my office.It’s painted a lovely shade of aqua. It’s got
a cozy chaise lounge, and a large screen monitor with a Jensen Ackles
screensaver.A half-nekkid Jensen Ackles
to boot.

And yet, the only time I can write in there is when I’m
pulling an all-nighter and don’t want to wake up my family.

One reason is the fact the room has Internet access.I have an Internet problem; I like being on
it too much.(Yep, another
confession.)To hear my muse, I need to
put as much distance between my brain an the World Wide Web as possible.

The other, bigger, reason is that although this room was
designed to be a room of my own….it’s anything but. Instead, it bears the
fingerprints of many cooks.

Originally, when I ditched the guest room in favor of my
office, I had this great plan.The fact
we were losing a bedroom didn’t worry me.Our guests – namely my widowed mother – could sleep in our master
bedroom while my husband and I slept elsewhere.Enter the first wrinkle.My mother refused.She has, for nearly five years, insisted –
and I say insisted, I mean to the point of near tantrum and tears on her part –
on sleeping on a roll-away bed in my office.This set up means I had to forgo the bookshelves and coffee maker I
wanted to install in the small space.It
also means that for about a week prior to my mother’s visits and a week after,
I get to battle feeling bad I dumped the original bedroom set up in the first
place.

Finally, there’s the storage issue.My office is the dumping ground for every
item waiting to be run to the attic, for the Christmas presents waiting to be
placed under the tree, the clothes waiting to be donated and anything else that
has yet to find a home.In other words,
when not playing host to my mother, it acts as the dumping ground.I can’t remember when I’ve sat at my desk and
not felt cramped by the paper, boxes and what-not littering the space.

Mainly, though, it’s the Internet Access.

And so my writer’s space isn’t my writer’s space, although
in my stubborn way, I haven’t told my family.Because telling them would be admitting my “room of my own” announcement
wasn’t all that necessary. Bad enough they spy me camped out on the living room
sofa writing on my Alphasmart every day.Or worse, packing up my notebook so I can drive to a nearby industrial
park.What does it say when your muse
speaks louder in your Hyundai Sonata than in your spa-colored chambers?I guess the point in all of this rambling is that while we
all still might need a room of our own, we don’t need an office.We simply need a muse, a pen, and some peace
and quiet.

4 comments:

Ha ha ha! That's so funny, Barb! I sometimes lose my office to company, because i have a futon in it that is more comfy than our sofa bed. But thankfully it's a big room, so I also have a bookcase and a filing cabinet. And the futon? It's my favourite reading spot. I have a lamp in the corner that makes it cozy.